week of feb 9 and 11

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Week #4

As a result of our work together this week,
  • We will understand the following concepts: goals, understandings, essential questions, standards, core tasks
  • We will be able to read standards and sample lessons as a way to identify desired results AND we will be able to "unpack" standards as a way to identify big ideas and performance
  • In addition, we'll "read" and discuss classroom scenes and consider the role of the teacher, the relationships between students/teachers, the learning environment, the learning goals and understandings teachers (and students) desire

Tuesday - we'll be discussing UBD Chapter 3 and Smags Chapter 15 (on standards)
Thursday - we'll continue standards discussion and move on to our book/movie club discussions


February 9th
Looking at Boise School District's Grade 9 ELA Curricular Documents (BSD = Boise School District)
We're looking at standards as part of the first stage of the Backwards Design Process (Identify Desired Results)

Unpacking Standards (an analytical framework -- UBD pg. 64) as a way to identify desired results

  • Established Goals
  • Stated or implied Big Ideas in the NOUNS and ADJECTIVES _ --> Essential Question Ideas: AND Understanding Ideas (Students will understand that )
  • Stated or implied real-world performances in the VERBS __ --> Performance Task Ideas



Looking at the two BSD documents: English 9: Course Scope and Sequence; Instructional and Performance Objectives

  • First, let's look at Quarter 3: Novel and see if we can unpack it with the above bullet points.
  • Second, let's look at the instructional and performance objective document.
    • Which of these standards seem to be addressed in Quarter 3: Novel? Which do not? How do we know?
    • Of those standards that seem to be addressed in this quarter, let's pick one to unpack.
      How about 0709.5 "Acquire skills for comprehending literary text?"
    • Let's use the above bulleted list to unpack this standard.
      • What seem to be the established goals?
      • What are the stated or implied Big Ideas in the Nouns and Adjectives?
      • What seem to be the stated or implied Real-World Performances in the Verbs?
    • Based on these big ideas, what might be some essential questions we might have students answer over the course of the unit?
    • Based on these real-world performances, what might we ask students to do?


Some larger questions raised in our readings ...
  • What are standards and/or what do people mean when they use the term? (Smags, pp. 321-337)
  • What are some problems when using standards to design instruction (UBD, pp 60-62)
  • Big Idea and Core Task - let's use the Frayer Model to figure out what these terms mean (UBD, pp. 65-81) (Frayer Model template here)


For Thursday's Book/Movie Club Discussion ... be ready to talk about these questions ... (post a response on your blog prior to this meeting as a way to prepare for this meeting)


“What do we see? What’s it mean?” framework that we used with the classroom scene photos as a way to generate what you want to include in your post.
  1. What do we see [in these movies]? (Physical descriptions/concrete observations of learners, teachers, content, tasks, questions, goals, etc._
  2. What might it mean?
    • What is being learned?
    • How is it being learned?
    • How do we know it’s being learned?
    • What would you have to believe about [learning/learners; subject matter; teaching] in order to think it’s a good idea to teach/learn in this way?
    • What can’t we see that might confirm or dis-confirm our speculation?